Process for manufacturing shoe-rands.



W. L. FRBNGH. PROCESS FOR MANUFACTURING SHOE BANDS. APPLICATION FILED JUNE 29, 190B.

95 1 1 O8 Patented Mar. 8, 1910.

PROCESS FOR MANUFACTUEING SHOE-BANDS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Mar. 8, 1910.

Application filed June 29, 1968. Serial No. 440,935.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, VVALTER L. FRENCH, a citizen of the United States, residing at Brockton, in the county of Plymouth and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes for Manufacturing Shoe-Bands; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to improvements in heel rands for shoes, and has to do more particularly with a novel process for manufacturing the same.

One of the objects of the invention is a process by which a heel rand can be manufactured at a cost very much less than hitherto known, and resulting in a product equally as good.

A further object of the invention is a process by which heel rands may be manufactured from certain parts of leather which are usually discarded and sold for a comparatively insignificant price.

An additional object of the invention is a process by which a heel rand may be obtained without employing any machine for pressing or forming the same, the rand being cut at once into the shape desired.

Other advantages will present themselves more clearly hereinafter, from a reading of the following detailed specification, in connection with the appended claim, wherein the features of the invention are more particularly pointed out.

In the drawings, in which I have disclosed a preferred embodiment of my improved process, Figure l is a view in elevation of the blank used in my process. Fig. 2 is a section taken from Fig. 1. Fig. 3 is a view in elevation of one of the waste leather pieces which I employ in producing the blank. Fig. 4% is a view in elevation showing the rand as cut from the blank.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, in which like reference characters refer to corresponding parts in the several views, A designates one of the waste pieces resulting from manufacture of box toes. These pieces are in the shape shown, and usually very thin at the central portions, where they are sometimes worn entirely through. At present, there is little use to which this waste portion can be put, and it is sold for almost nothing. By my process, I employ two or three of these waste pieces, or as many more as is necessary to obtain the desired thickness, and cement them together to form a thick, solid blank as shown in Fig. 2. This blank is, of course, thinner at its central portion than at its outer edges, but this is immaterial, so far as the finished product is concerned, in so much as the central portion is cut out to form a substantially horse-shoe shaped rand. After cementing together the requisite number of pieces A, as above described, I employ any suitable die having a series of notch forming cutters therein, to cut the blank into the form shown in Fig. 4 thus providing a finished rand to which it is not necessary to apply any pressing machine or forming devices as are usually employed in the manufacture of heel rands. By the processes most commonly employed at present, a rand of this character is produced by taking an oblong narrow strip of leather, first skiving one edge of the same, bending it around to form the shape of the rand desired, and then pressing it to cause it to maintain such shape. By such a process, much more machinery is necessary to complete the product, the leather must be purchased at a very high figure, and the article produced is not any better than that resulting from my improved process. By manufacturing the rand from the waste pieces of box toes, I am enabled to purchase these parts in large quantities for an insignificant sum, thus decreasing the cost of the rand very largely at the outset. Furthermore, I need only employ a single machine in my process, namely, a die-cutting device which will operate on the blank to cut out the desired shape of rand, which is immediately ready for use without the need of any pressing or shaping of the same by other machinery. It has also been found that a rand produced by cutting a blank of this character, is much better in every way, and more effective than where it is produced by bending a narrow strip of leather into a substantially semi-circular form, and then pressing it to cause it to retain such form.

What I desire to secure by Letters-Patent, and claim is:

The process of constructing a wedgeshaped rand, which consists in cementing together a plurality of semi-elliptical-shaped layers of leather, comparatively thick at their outer edges and tapering toward and much thinner at their central portions, and ture, in the presence of two subscribing Witdying out to the desired contour a rand, with nesses. its curved outer edge formed from the thick i r I outer edges of the cemented layers, and its 1 VALEER BEE} inner curved edge formed from the thinner t Witnesses;

central portions of the cemented layers.

In testimony whereof, I a'ffix my signa- EDMUND L. REED, i ARTHUR H. EDDY. 

